Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The Sea

The Sea

“…for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny.” (pg. 5)

Again, Conrad uses personification in his novella. This time Conrad uses personification in terms of the sea. For centuries, men have been called to the sea and their ships by their “mistress”, the spirit of the open oceans and seas. In reality, there is no physical call or mistress that lives in the sea and commands sailors to travel, but the idea of a siren call from the ocean is an idea that has existed for more than a thousand years. Conrad knows this (as he was a sailor himself) and is therefore able to illustrate this yearning to sail in his depiction of Marlow.